I recently started using IM again after not doing so for some years. Adium's UI is outstanding and years ago Adium supported most of the then-popular protocols. I was surprised when I returned to IM use to find most of the services & protocols Adium supports are in terminal decline, and consequently that Adium use was also declining.

I am wondering about the future of Adium. There appears to be a chicken & egg situation where fewer developers are supporting this endeavor, however I wonder if this is caused in part by emphasis on old protocols instead of new ones. I do not believe it is caused by lack of interest in IM. Franz is a GUI for multiple newer protocols and works well. Its' only shortcoming is a bland, generic UI that does not integrate tightly with any OS. This for me is a near-fatal flaw. I use MacOS particularly for the richness and subtlety of the UI.

I realize that protocol support in non-trivial and that it is something of a moving target too, at least with some services. Still it seems to me that either the Adium and closely-related IM development community either vigorously plans support for new and growing services or Adium will inevitably sunset. Considering the very high quality of the existing client this would be a real loss.

What can be done to make this happen? I wish I were a dev, and if so I'd volunteer to tackle a given protocol, however I'm not. I'm certain members of the dev community will know what must be done.

I surveyed services & protocols in use globally and found the following all matter today and likely have real futures:* Linked-In* Facebook* Twitter* Whatsapp* VK* WeChat* QQ* Line* Viber

I hope the Adium community will tackle these and publicize doing so to attract new users and devs, thus giving users the continuing option for a very high-quality UI as opposed to bland & generic. Thanks to all who have contributed thus far to the finest MacOS IM client.

Thank you for your informative reply. If there is something a none-dev person may do to help raise awareness among devs, please let me know. I'll ask a few programer-friends for ideas also. Last year Circus Ponies Notebook died due to market apathy (and Apple stupidity). This was the best of its' type ever. Now we have only MScrapware One Note and other lessor choices available. I hope we can avoid the same fate for Adium.